Apprenticeships Funding

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate.

Apprenticeships are an important part of the labour market and should always be about employment and employability. Many young people are offered a precious route into the workplace that would be barred without the support offered by employers and the Skills Funding Agency in England and Skills Development Scotland. However, that route into employment must take into consideration the life experiences of the young person entering the workplace. Many of the young people are coming from supportive backgrounds, with parents who can help them into employment by doing simple tasks; any parent of a teenager will know that the toughest task in the day is getting them out of bed. If there is not a supportive parent there to do that, or to wash their clothes or make sure that there is food in the fridge, those barriers become much greater.

Years ago, I taught a young boy called Sean. His mother was not on the scene and his father had addiction issues, so Sean, as well as getting himself to school in the morning, took his five-year-old sister to school, and as a result was often late. Sean needed an understanding employer to enable him to move successfully into the world of work. For the first couple of years, he was much more time-intensive than other new starts, but through the perseverance and tenacity of that employer he is now one of their most valued and loyal members of staff.

It is well understood that employers would be unable to invest so heavily in intensive training without Government support, particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Would the employer have taken on the extra risks associated with young Sean if that support were cut?

I also have particular concerns that there is not a strategic view of the skills being developed through the apprenticeship programme. According to a recent National Audit Office report, the Department for Education has not set out how it will use the increase in apprenticeship numbers to deliver improvements in productivity, or how employers will be supported to deliver the apprenticeships that offer the most value to the economy. We have a situation where an unscrupulous employer can take on an apprentice in an already saturated area of the labour market, so that when the young person moves on, there is no real prospect of employment. Meanwhile, areas such as science, technology, engineering, maths and digital continue to struggle with shortages. This levy does not seem to be taking that into account or delivering on it.

BAE Systems is a large employer in my constituency and it is committed to its apprenticeship programme. At the moment, it has 2,036 apprentices in full-time training, and 67 started in September this year. BAE is also using over-training as part of its strategic plan, so if it perceives it will need to fill 30 positions, it trains up 40 young people to ensure that the skills shortage in supply lines can be met. It is disappointing that the UK Government have been unable to have the same strategic foresight as many responsible employers.

The concerns raised by many Scottish employers are different from those discussed this morning. Although apprenticeship policy is devolved, the levy is UK-wide. Many employers in Scotland will be paying into the levy pot, but it is not yet clear whether all the revenue generated will find its way back to Scotland. Essentially, this employment tax has been introduced across the UK to deliver on the UK Government’s ambitions in England. The levy undermines the Scottish approach to modern apprenticeships, which, unlike what we are hearing about this morning, is not just about vocational jobs or vocational training; it is also about degree-level apprenticeships. Employers throughout the UK need Government support to train apprentices, but employers in Scotland need assurances that the levy paid in Scotland will come back to Scotland, to support our apprentices.